20 amazing designers to follow on Instagram

Instagram is no longer just the social platform for sharing your brunch pics or cute pet photos (like Pinterest, but with a little less wedding). Now it’s an actual tool for anyone in the creative arts to share their portfolio and a place where anyone can find creative inspiration.

1. Tania Samoshkina (telinunu)
—

Tania Samoshkina (known to us as telinunu) is a New York-based professional artist and illustrator with more than six years of experience. She creates one-of-a-kind designs for clients that showcase her playful aesthetic and sense of joy.

Tania specializes in character design, print design, surface patterns and logotypes—all of which you can find in her feed along with fun posts that mix her cartoon-y characters into real world settings.

Her simple, unusual details bring her characters to life, and it’s fun to watch her feed to see what they’ll do. You’ll even spot her popping up occasionally, too!

2. Ashwin Kandan (Shwin)
—

For a unique, colorful blend of pop art, branding, illustration, typography and editorial design, Ashwin Kandan (aka Shwin), is the person to follow.

Inspiringly bold visuals and interesting color palettes are Ashwin’s MO. And his sense of humor. His portraits of people range from fun and sexy to touchingly sweet, and he’s got a way of delivering a brand concept with a single visual that hits hard.

4. Razvan Vezeteu (RazvanV)
—

Razvan Vezeteu’s (aka RazvanV) Instagram feed reveals an artist with a respect for both the nostalgic and a modern aesthetic.

The self-taught illustrator and icon designer blends trendy design elements like flat design with just a few eye-catching colors. It all comes to life with different textures to create volume and depth. For inspiration in your illustration game, this is a great feed to follow.

5. Natalia Maca
—

Natalia Maca is a UK-based digital illustrator and graphic designer. She is a storytelling artist who expresses key messages visually in her work. Natalia specializes in editorial illustration, publishing, advertising and T-shirt design.

She uses a similar color palette for most of her work, so her IG profile looks very consistent and pleasing to scroll through. Many of her illustrations are flat and often have very delicate textures.

Using a slightly more subdued color palette, Natalia allows the detail in her work to tell the story with illustrations that have their own unique, surrealistic style.

7. Zombijana Bones
—

Zombijana Bones (Andrijana to her friends) is a visual artist from Montenegro full of colorful and quirky humor.

She is a traditional pen and ink illustrator with a funny, unorthodox style, which produces humorous hand-drawn illustrations that are cute and unexpected all at once. Her handwritten notes add a genuine feeling, and the overall effect of her comics is a perfect balance of sweet and dark.

9. Pablo Gerardo Camacho
—

It’s easy to see that illustration is among Pablo’s main interests. But motion graphics, typography and editorial design are up there, too. In this feed, you’ll find carefully placed details in illustrations that change their meaning significantly—the work of a creative trickster.

12. June Digan
—

June Digan loves colorful, detailed watercolor illustrations and hand-lettering, and many of her creations feature both of those elements.

Recently June has been creating a series with an illustration of a different city in the background for every letter of the alphabet. Each creation is limited to 80 minutes, which is incredible given the results.

14. Yukai Du
—

Yukai Du creates both still images and animations using brilliant blocks of colors and interesting patterns.

The designs can come off as deceptively simple at first—drawing the viewer in only to slowly reveal their complexity. For a boost of inspiration on how colors and patterns can work together in a holistic way, check out this feed.

15. Marko Matović (LittleFox)
—

Marko has a playful style that is bright and colorful with lots of attention to detail. His cheerful and detailed illustrations and infographics make use of the interplay between flat design and exciting colors.

16. Maja Säfström
—

Maja prints many of her illustrations on fabrics as well as papers, and eventually uses watercolors to add color to some of them. These are “warm and fuzzy” illustrations without being cloying or silly, which is an art in itself.

17. Steven Mink
—

Steven Mink (aka stvmink) is an Indonesian designer and artist who specializes in creative typography design and hand lettering.

For Steven Mink, typography is a passion. Type isn’t something that should merely be readable. It should be beautiful and inspiring. Most of the original fonts they create have vintage and nostalgic flavors, and they overlay them onto photographs or within illustrations.

18. Josh Emrich
—

If Mad Men was a comedy, it would look like Josh Emrich’s work. His creations have a vintage look and a very nostalgic late 50s and early 60s feel—with the occasional surreal nature illustration thrown in.

His detailed characters have a lot of personality. This is a great follow for anyone who simply loves art and design and wants to look at something beautiful or amazing every day.

20. James White
_

James White’s IG feed is like a Sci-Fi, neon version of the 80s, plus surreal modern details.

For example, you’re likely to see things like Robocop in Miami Vice colors, along with portraits of Game of Thrones characters in a similar style. So not “Totally 80s,” a very interesting mix that ends up feeling like its own genre.

Wanna become part of an amazing designer community?

Sign up as a designer on 99designs!

The author

Karla Lant is a freelance writer, author, journalist and editor, and an adjunct professor. She focuses on science, technology, and technical writing. She likes to build robots and bake bread in her spare time.